[TOOLS] Proper traps for fantasy games
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- čas přidán 31. 03. 2024
- We need proper traps, designed for magical worlds, not trap based on our mundane world. How do we make those? This is my process! And mini-rant....
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"Master trap maker! Build me a trap...but be mindful, it must be CR3...my nemesis is just beginning you know. Wouldn't want an early TPK don't you know."
My favorite trap as a player was from Dragon Heist, I believe. It was a painting that enchanted you to stare at it. Two of us failed our saves and RP’ed out having a stuffy pretentious conversation about the artist’s technique. Meanwhile the rest of the party was getting attacked by some kind of ooze and desperately trying to snap us out of it. But they kept failing, so we were just like “stop making so much noise and let me know what you think about these brush strokes.”
*Tosses painting into the ooze*
*Death scream and blood splatters on the canvas*
"Wow, I just noticed this stroke of red here! It seems somewhat out of place though, what do you think it means?"
I really love the timer die idea. An example of how to apply it I came up with:
The rogue made it through, their time is 1.
The ranger rolls 1d4 timer die.
The wizard and monk both roll 2d4 timer dice, but takes the lower die.
The paladin and fighter in heavy armor both roll 2d6 timer die and take the higher die.
If you want to decrease your time, the DC for the skill roll is 10+ your time.
Hello Mr. How To Be a Great DM.
I started my D&D journey a few years ago watching you and Matt Colville and DM Lair and a few others. Now im a confident DM, and have even published my own source book. I want you to know that you probably had the most useful advice for my journey and there is one specific nugget I still use in every campaign and is the thing I pass on to people taking their first steps in DMing. Its your phrase "The Villain Wants to do X, using the power of Y but is having trouble doing so because of Z". Its so concise, its so perfect and answering those questions paired with picking a theme will literally create self writing campaigns
Cheers man.
I like the old reverse-gravity spike pit or ooze filled trap in the ceiling. And purely magical "curse" wards that players can decipher but not necessarily disarm, so they have to figure out how to get around it, or endure it.
That's brilliant, the time dice check. What I did was the "team leader" check, where the person with the best stealth check made a check to stealth the group roll, or the diplomacy check roll, or whatever the team was focused on, and the rest of the team could help, or otherwise, on a bad roll hinder the "team leader's" result. But changing the nature of the check from "you must survive this", to "this is how long it takes" is much better. The best players could lead through a challenge by lowering the DC for exceptional success, then the check for the rest of the team is not do or die, but instead, it takes you X minutes, or you have to roll X d6s for each 5 you miss the DC by. I like it!
My favorite puzzle trap moment was a room with collapsing tiles. The party found the correct path, then looked at what was in the next room. The barbarian decided to jump down and tank the damage below. The party then lowered a rope, which was a great laugh. It technically skipped a small part of the dungeon, but it was a branching map, so it was part of the plan to begin with. The group later went to use the same route back out, but the tiles above had been fixed.
One counter I have for 'wizard flies over' is that said wizard is using magic. Magic not used elsewhere if needed. I dont care if they do because my players also know that spells do not just come freely. You dont rest in a dungeon and still have to come back through.
When I designed the traps for my module "Escape from Miklagard" I had two guiding points:
-These are security measures for public monuments and no burial sites or the like.
- Magic users aren't Tomb robbers as they do belong to a high social class, which allows them access into the academic world.
One of the most benevolent traps in "Escape from Miklagard" is found in an Arc of Triomph-like monument, which has representations of constellations done with gems. If you want to pry one of the gems loose, you have to use a ladder to reach and then, if you are not observant enough, "trigger" the trap as these gems are embedded in a way that makes them seals for deposits of water containing self sustained microbiological ecosystems. Gravity does the rest and the PC, hireling, or henchman do get showered in the putrid water, catching brain eating amoeba or flesh eating bacteria.
I like a puzzle trap that relies on the PC's languages. I'll split the group into who can read the language and those that cannot. I give the puzzle in english to those that have proficiency in the puzzle's language and another copy with glyphs or scrawls to the other group. Then I have them work together with some distance between them so they have to talk their way through the puzzle.
A very good video! You hit on all the best points, including the REDICULOUS idea that a wealthy/powerful person would restrict themselves to mundane traps.
My favorite trap I've ever presented to my players was "Be Wary of Crab". It was a multilayered trap, comprised of a room with metal grates along the tops of the walls, and a bas-relief of huge crab on the ceiling. When a living creature reached the center of the room, the doors on either side would seal, a Giant Crab that could reach all parts of the room in a single turn would be summoned, and the room would slowly begin to flood with seawater... And hundreds of regular crabs as well, courtesy of the grates that led to the sea, and caves full of crabs.
How did the players beat it? Well, the first time, they had to survive 10 turns in that mess, before the water drained and the Crab vanished. After that, they used a Summon spell to trigger the trap, and then crossed it during the 1-minute reset period after it goes off.
The advice I would give is to avoid using traps anywhere the characters occupying that place commonly go. Traps should really only be used to protect treasure rooms (whatever that means in the context). And they should never be used to protect the 'main objective', unless the characters are given an opportunity to learn about the trap, and prepare for it, before they're confronted with it.
Another option is to put something that can be used to solve the trap nearby (not necessarily in the same room). If they need a rope, maybe they can use curtains. If they need a 10 foot pole, they can use the curtain rod, etc. Designing puzzles in this way lets you fall back on dice rolls (which you can make as generous as you want) if your players don't figure it out on their own. And doing so also clues your players in that if you asked them to roll to figure it out, then logically there must BE a solution to 'figure out'.
One of my favorite traps was a simple deep spike pit, with the mcguffin sitting on a pillar in the center, and a ledge going all the way around the circumference of the room. The pillar didn't really have anything for a grapnel to hook on to (and risked knocking the mcguffin into the pit), but simply tying down one end of the rope and then walking around the perimeter of the room (keeping the rope taut between yourself and where you tied it down) would bend the rope around the pillar and let you make a bridge once you got back to where you started.
Flying there sounds easier ... even Mage Hand 😊
@@cristiananao294 Sure there are other solutions, but that's not the point. The point is that any character capable of using a rope could get the mcguffin as a fallback solution, as long as they or their players could figure it out. Not "well you beat the BBEG but you don't have what you need to deal with the trap, too bad."
I don't really use "traps", as far as I can remember. I have, however, pulled a very well-received "incident". Star Wars setting, party was walking around the streets, I forget why. There was a hidden (and therefore requires a check to spot) backpack... full of explosives. Jedi characters got a sense roll for free, but the rolls were low enough that they just got a heads up. Bomb goes off, saves are rolled, no big deal to the party... but there were bits of civilians and debris everywhere now.
Love everything Guy puts out on CZcams! 4 days until the next episode of Duskmourn Chronicles!
The nastiest trap I had ever seen was a hallway leading to a 60ft drop, with a permanent illusion to make it look like instead of the passage taking a 90° vertically down it looks like it continues.. the rewards you could find below though..
You said it so well. Though I do think you missed an important part to open with. What is purpose of a trap... in a game... Make traps engaging vs resource sink.
You explained it so well in why we do this. Traps to be a challenge to overcome. Not rolling for the sake of rolling.
Summary, a good trap has players acting to identify a trap, and figuring out the solution. Not roll a dice to do that.
Example: Starfinder pregen module for society had a trap of a grenade in some woods. By module. 'Roll perception, you see trap, disable'. Boring! No, I had the players walking and one of them notice something abnormal on side of path. They then set about approaching, identifying and then working a solution.
That is what makes traps interesting. I never say 'you see a trap'. They see signs of something. Could be secret door, a clue, a monster. But the players then get to go about investigating it. No player ever has to say 'I check for traps' at my table. I assume they are. So how they act determines what if any clues.
On the other hand : if a character takes levels in rogue(or similar classes) to be the party "trap expert", wouldn't his character feel robbed of his time to shine because " the party solved it together, yay!" ? I get it, the party thinking about ways to disarm the trap is more entertaining than waiting for Steve to roll his dice, add all of his bonuses and misquote the line of some movie (" they say a trapbreaker makes only two mistakes. The first one is becoming a trapbreaker.." ). To all the other players it's dice stacking time, for Steve its his 5 minutes of spotlight.
@@Eisenwulf666 No, not at all. In fact it usually does the opposite because their skills are still needed and sometimes can be used more. It no longer is 'check4traps' every two minutes. Now they can use their skills more to help spot, identify, and resolve. I actually started GMing this way because I didnt even want to ever play a rogue anymore because that is what I was in game. Every room, every hall, every box. 'I check for traps'. Occasionally I got to say, 'I disable device'. Til the inevitable 'Hahaha! Take 3d6 of damage! You didnt check for trap'
Still their time to shine, but it means they are not just a generic skill monkey. Example: One of my traps are not just 'disable device' and done. Engaging traps are about opportunities. It isnt a time to shine. It is being just a tool for other players. It isnt even changing the actual trap or solution. It makes the path engaging and lets the players decide what they will do with info given. "Rogue notices the air is remarkably clear here". Now there is something engaging. A process of identification and disarmament of a fire trap. The air having ducting to feed the fire. Still need rogue skills to figure it out and bypass.
I treat traps like any encounter. Imagine if a GM just said, "You walk into a room. Orcs attack." and that is it. Just constant generic gubbins. Gets boring.
If you wanna get technical, magical traps are the only kind you'll find in most real tombs. Its just that magic isn't real in our world, so people outside of that culture don't tend to think of them as traps.
Places like Mayan temples and Egyptian pyramids where places that people still entered parts of for hundreds of years after they were constructed. You might seal up the burial chamber and grave goods to protect against thieves, but you aren't going to be crushing your priests on accident with a boulder.
A trap I've used a few times for different groups involves a moderate sized room with doors on two sides that require a countdown to open. There are Summoning Runes hidden on the floor that activate when a creature moves across them, and they spawn fodder enemies like zombies or constructs along the walls. As the players and their enemies move through the room, more creatures are spawned in, unless the players can find a sequence to shut the room down.
Wonderful. Some more ideas to make cool traps. One of my best trap to day was a door which started to hum when a character got close to it. 3 seconds later an electric discharge in form of a lightning bolt strikes a fixed area before the door - and the humming begins. The next strike is more severe and so on. How will you disarm this trap? I am curious to read your answer.
Really insightful video. This is stuff you only learn from experience
I was told I was really, really mean with one trap - a 10' pit, with no ledges on the sides to climb along. Seemed simple enough to jump, right? Except for the thin, strong, nonmagical metal wire across the middle of the pit, difficult to spot under the best of circumstances. The monk was very disappointed when he caught it in his throat and was inconveniently stopped in midair, and dropped straight down without anything to reach to slow his fall...
Had they just held the torch over the edge and looked a little closer, they'd have seen the faint metallic glint, and been able to cut it with a spear or something, but no, they just used Detect Magic to check for invisible traps. 😅
If I recall correctly, that was the pit with a pike-filled well in it. Of the northern variety, that is - those fishies were aggressive and hangry.
I like traps that don't necessarily halt players, but change how they will interact with the dungeon. For instance, for a lair that is expecting combat and relies on outpacing the denizens before they can get to warning bells or have time to setup ambushes has traps like a magical effigy which (if ignored) risks imposing an initiative penalty curse on party members. A simple check reveals that defacing it disables the trap. If they fail to keep their progress hidden, then the denizens setup simple delay "traps" like a net to pin the players in a combat, broken furniture to partially block passages, and ranged attackers paired with each of these... All of them avoidable if the players stop and think about how ridiculous this would be to work in, and look for the secret side passage.
Basically, things that add steps to existing encounters, but don't make or break the possibility of access. Bonus points if the players can turn the traps around on the enemy.
Would you consider a moving environment to be a trap? Like the inside of a clockwork building and the PCs and baddies both have to avoid the gears moving around or become trapped or take damage from the building too?
I'm probably going to come off as a stuffy old man who hates new D&D (I don't), but I do think that easy access to endlessly renewable light or every ancestry having darkvision did rob us of one of the most realistic, practical time pressures in dungeon crawling: Torches. Hunger and thirst are hardly a threat in even a very long dungeon most of the time, but torchlight is brief enough that even losing 10 minutes can add significant tension, and you can only realistically carry so many of the things before you encounter problems. The monsters are powerful enough to be a threat even when you *can* see them, so you absolutely don't want to have to deal with them blind.
A time pressure makes *any* dungeon crawl experience better for a game master because you get to keep the tension going while not having the party get completely stuck because they got a bad roll: The rogue didn't fail to pick the lock, they just spent 10 minutes doing it and now the torch is flickering. The adventure can still go on for all players involved at a cost, rather than the whole game grinding to a halt because the party is stumped by a door.
A Glyph of Warding that casts Heat Metal or one that casts Magic Missile and the trigger is casting a concentration spell lol.
Perfect timing
My players were asked by an Enchanter to check on one of his friends, another Enchanter in the next city. He had gotten word his friend had been arrested. When they arrived, they were sucked into the magical security system. They found themselves in a room with 3 hallways leading off, a raised dais in the center with 3 pillars stood on it. Beyond them was a beautiful monolith of uncut crystal in an alcove. Behind them was a crystal cylinder in which a rival shopkeeper was trapped. This shopkeeper had accused the enchanter of having affiliation with a cult so he could steal from him. He remembered coming to the shop and then waking up in here. After some exploration, the party found 3 orbs, one down each of the corridors in smaller rooms. They had to connect with the orbs so they would follow them. However, connecting with any of the orbs caused the giant crystal to come to life. If it reached any of them, it would sever the connection and send the orb back to its location. With the help of some NPC's (I only have 2 players) they managed to get the orbs to the central columns while avoiding the crystal golem and no one got their memory of failing wiped.
The thing with traps though is that if you want to be realistic, you don't want the ones on the receiving end to survive... So if we truly want to have trap be realistic, we'd need to have it VERY fatal which isn't something the players want.
Admittedly I stole this one from YuYu Hakusho:
Ceiling trap: huge block of concrete falls down on the players. Its weighted just enough for all of the players to hold up with all their strength checks, but theyre trapped. The only way out is someone has to stop holding the block up and get to the lever directly in front of them to disengage the trap.
Every other turn of the PCs I was making them do strength checks while having them figure out what to do, kept that feeling of intensity and that idea blocking by urging them to use the strength check.
Finally my wizard player got through the idea blocking and used Mage Hand to pull the lever even though it cost an action that compromised his strength check initially, and they got through it.
Have the monsters attack while the paladin is crossing the trap
Dungeons and dragons online had some amazing.
Roll one DIE.
Roll ten DICE.
Nope. The language has moved on. It is now linguistically acceptable to call a single polyhedral random number generate a dice, just as it is to call it a die. Times change, and we learn new things every day.
I actually hate traps. They just grind the game down to a stand still. There's no real reason why to he characters couldn't hike back to town and come back with the exact thing they need, like plank, or a long stick, after they have all repeatedly checked for traps.
IMO, you're talking about a puzzle. It's obvious the "thing" is there. The players are trying to figure out how to minimize consequences.
It's essentially the fantasy version of a combination lock. The players need to figure out the "code" and the designer would have that code. The code could be spells, movement types, buttons to push, an item from another room etc.
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